A quick tip to save money is to not go out for lunch. Many execs and middle managers get comfortable going out with clients for lunch because they don’t have to pick up the check, but this can become a bad habit and even when they don’t have meetings they will still go out. It’s not that you have to bring your lunch all the time to work but it will save you money. Get organized and you can buy a frozen dinner for $1 – $3.50 or even bring leftovers for next to nothing. Most of the time you will spend anywhere from $5 – $12 for lunch. That’s 3 times as much! If you bring your lunch and just save that $4 each day, you will save an extra $1,000 each year for your budget. Just imagine, if you were someone that spends $12 on lunch every day, you could save up to $2,750 each year. You could use that money to pay down debt, use it for your next goal or spend that money on an all-inclusive vacation. This is a great way to save money and get out of debt. Watch the newspaper grocery ads for hot buys on frozen meals. Especially, at the first of the year, you can get some really great deals on healthy meals.

In 2008, my wife and I decided that we needed to get on a budget. It wasn’t easy and we worked on it, month after month. At the beginning of the year, I took a second job and worked from home for 6 months to make some extra cash to pay for the baby delivery. We started to make progress in January, but in February everything was put on hold because I fell and broke my hand on some ice. This set us back around $2,500 and we then owed even more than what we did at the beginning of the year. But we worked hard, and paid our debts down and paid $11,700 in really 10 months. Did I forget to mention that we also had a baby in June! By the time the baby came we had already paid down our debt that we didn’t even include our debt from the baby delivery. We had all of our Baby Bills paid within 2 months because we had saved and planned for him to come.